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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Pat Winter's wonderful magazine, Crazy Quilt Gatherings has recently come out with the summer issue and I am absolutely thrilled to have several of my crazy quilted eyeglass cases published in the company of many gorgeous creations of crazy quilters I admire. As always, Pat has done a marvelous job gathering delightful eye candy along with interesting articles, tutorials and techniques that any crazy quilter would love.

The magazine can be purchased at MagCloud and if you do so, you will find me smiling at you on page 25 :)

Thank you, dear Pat!

And, as you can see in this photo I took of my copy of the magazine, I have just finished a new eyeglass case, for a lady whose favorite color is brown. It was a bit of a challenge, as brown and I - to put it mildly - are not the best friends ever.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Oh, how I love traveling... visiting new places, meeting people from different countries, getting acquainted, even if only briefly, with their culture...
Unfortunately we don't get to travel as much as we wish, even though our wishes are not (always) unrealistic. So, I travel virtually, wherever my embroideries might take me, by keeping track of where they "fly". One of my eyeglass cases, for instance, flew to New Zealand, a place I can only dream of ever visiting, so I spent days at that time admiring photos of New Zealand. And that is what I do every time an item leaves my studio, taking a piece of my heart wherever it goes. I have "visited" quite a few places this way and I feel so very lucky to have been able to do so.

My next virtual travel takes me to a place that is "within my reach" and hope to really visit it in a couple of years: Paris...

Friday, May 17, 2013

Yesterday, around noon, the pink butterflies gracefully took over their garden and ten minutes later they were at the framer's to get a temporary finishing. I didn't take a photo of the finished project... it has to be kept a secret for a few more days, as it will be entered into a little crafters' competition, where all prizes consist in free passes to the first Butterfly House in Romania :) And this is all mere coincidence...

So, until I can share photos of my finished butterflies with you, may I present a photo of the latest eyeglass case I have made. After all, this is pink, too :)

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Oh, I can't even begin to tell you how much I am enjoying my butterfly project!

Yesterday I finished embroidering all the wings and managed to safely cut out and set free the wings of the first butterfly.

There is a whole lot of room for improvement as far as my long&short stitching skills are concerned and the funny thing is that the best looking wing is the very first I have made. Beginners luck... LOL

Off to cut out two more sets of wings and work on butterflies' bodies!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The idea of this project has been slowly cooking in my head for months now but I just didn't have the time to actually start working on it. It kept bugging me, fluttering about in my mind every single day. I dreamt about it at night, I thought about it while washing the dishes, while ironing and even while working on commissions...
When I woke up this past Sunday morning I knew it was finally TIME. No more waiting. Although this will mean serious, and I mean very serious catching up work later on, I put everything else aside and began letting the flutter out of my head.

I started by printing the background image both on paper and on fabric, then sketching the design on the paper print. The lettering was also "drawn" by hand. I guess I could have printed that too, but I feel that even though less than perfect, it is more personal the way I wrote it.

After stitching the lettering I drew my butterflies, three in number and all three pink :) Traced the wings on cotton fabric and couched the wires... Yes, sweet little stumpwork butterflies! (that is what I am hoping for)

This is my very first attempt to both wired stumpwork elements and long&short stitch, and although the first set of wings didn't turn out identical, at the end of the day I am happy with the result. Considering...

Two more butterflies to go and a teeny tiny bit of silk ribbon embroidery on the background... See you all when I get there.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

There is a drawer in my studio that I call the "ripening drawer". Many of my finished embroideries have spent time in there, some less, some more, some have been there for years, waiting patiently to ripen and be assembled, finished into boxes or pillows or whatever the case may be.

These two dimensional daisy embroideries have waited for more than their fair share of time, too, packed together in that same drawer. Oh, not because I am a procrastinator when it comes to assembling my embroideries, no, no, they just needed some time to ripen... LOL

Anyway, their time finally came and now they are finished into a wooden box topper and a pillow. I painted the box and was planning to antique and ornate it a little bit, but gave up on that idea and kept it simple and delicate. Now I need to add something else to the ripening drawer because I have more of these wooden boxes and I am sure that both crazy quilting and stumpwork would look great on them. But that's a story for another day...

Monday, April 29, 2013

It all started at the very beginning of my pendant making madness, when I made a monogram pendant for my very special friend, Lee Albrecht. At the time I created patterns for the whole alphabet, but then moved on to other designs and forgot all about the letters.

Then an acquaintance of Lee's saw her pendant and ordered a similar one, so another L pendant was created.

While working on it, I thought I might as well make some more and wondering which letter I should start with, I remembered that my father asked me the other day if I have ever made a pendant for myself. Well, I haven't... Correction: now I have :)

And after my A was done, it seemed only natural to embroider an M as a Mother's Day present for my Mother whose initials are MM-M.